1 . There is a man who I’d like to tell you about. His name is Sandy Greenberg. Sandy was a very good student, but he came from a poor family. And so he went to Columbia University, but while there, he became blind.
But something else happened to Sandy that may surprise you. Sandy said that when he lost his sight, his roommate would read his textbooks to him, every night. As a result, Sandy went on to graduate. He got a scholarship, and he went off to study at Oxford.
One day, Sandy got a call at Oxford, and his former roommate said, “Sandy, I’m really unhappy. I really don’t like being in graduate school, and I don’t want to do this.”
So Sandy asked, “Well, what do you want to do?”
And his roommate told him, “Sandy, I really love to sing. I have a high school friend who plays the guitar. And we would really like to try the music business. But we need to make a record, and in order to do that I need $500.”
So Sandy Greenberg told me he took all his life savings and sent it to his roommate. He told me, “You know, what else could I do? He made my life; I needed to help make his life.”
I almost forgot. You probably are wanting to know who Sandy’s roommate was. I think you’ve heard of him. Sandy’s roommate was a fellow by the name of Art Garfunkel, and he teamed up with another musician by the name of Paul Simon. That $500 helped them make a record that eventually became “The Sound of Silence.”
I hope you’ll remember the power of doing well by doing good. Each of you, in your own lives, will be faced with challenges and problems that you didn’t expect. How you are able to deal with adversity will be influenced by how you deal with others along the way. What you get will depend a lot on what you give. And that’s the end of the story of doing well, by doing good.
More importantly, when you get to be my age, you will find yourself beginning to ask, did my life make a difference? I think the only way to face this question is to consider, every day of your life: How can I do something for somebody else? How can I give back to others? It may be teaching, it may be becoming a doctor, you may be successful in business — no matter what your career path, there will always be the opportunity to give back. The chance will present itself to give your time, give your money, but mostly, to give your own heart and soul.
1. When Sandy Greenberg lost his sight, ____________.| A．he had thoughts of quitting college | B．he overcame the difficulties on his own |
| C．he borrowed a friend’s notes | D．a friend helped him with his study |
| A．Sandy had a difficult time at Oxford |
| B．Sandy and his roommate both went on studying after their graduation |
| C．singing was one of Sandy’s hobbies |
| D．Sandy’s roommate was a great success at graduate school |
| A．to encourage us to face difficulties bravely |
| B．to tell us to change our path in life if we want to |
| C．to show that disabled people can succeed with help |
| D．to tell us that by helping others, we can also help ourselves |
| A．difficulty | B．generosity | C．kindness | D．friendship |
| A．helping others to make sure that we are successful |
| B．using our life to make a difference to others |
| C．being a teacher so that we can give back to others |
| D．starting to be generous when we become older |
2 . The clock rules our lives. The more we try to save time, the less time we seem to have. In every area of our lives we are doing things faster. And many of us live in towns and cities which are getting noisier and more stressful as each day passes. But now a worldwide movement, whose aim is to slow life down, has started. Its supporters are people who believe that a happier and healthier way of life is possible.
The Slow Food movement was founded the day that an Italian journalist, Carlo Petrini, saw that McDonald’s had opened a restaurant in a beautiful square in Rome. He thought it was sad that many people today live too quickly to sit down for a proper meal and only eat much fast food. He decided that he had to try to do something about it and so he started the Slow Food movement. Slow Food has become a global organization ever since and now has more than 80,000 members in 100 countries.
Slow Food also encourages people to eat local and regional food, to use local shops and markets, to eat out in small family restaurants, and to cook with traditional recipes.
The idea of Slow Cities was inspired by the Slow Food movement. The aim of Slow Cities is to improve people’s quality of life. Towns which want to become a Slow City have to reduce traffic and noise, increase the number of green areas, plant trees, build pedestrian zones, and promote local businesses and traditions. Now it has spread to other countries all over the world, from the UK to Japan and Australia. There are now 135 Slow Cities in 24 countries across the world that have been named since founding of the organization in 1999. Gao Chun County, in east China’s Jiangsu Province, is expected to be named the first “Slow City” in China next year.
“Slow Cities are about having a community life in the town,” said a local resident. “It is not ‘slow’ as in ‘stupid’. It is ‘slow’ as in the opposite of ‘worried’ and ‘stressful’.”
But not everybody is happy. For teenagers, who have to go 25km to Norwich, the nearest city, to buy CDs, living in a Slow City is not very attractive. “It’s all right here for adults,” says Lewis Cook, 16. “But if you want excitement, you have to go to Norwich. We need more things here for young people.”
1. What’s the aim of the Slow Food movement?| A．To call on people to eat out. | B．To make people enjoy cooking. |
| C．To drive McDonald’s out of Rome | D．To encourage people to slow down. |
| A．reducing traffic and noise | B．increasing the number of green areas |
| C．building more department stores | D．promoting local businesses and traditions |
| A．Slow Food was founded in 1999 | B．there is no Slow City in China now |
| C．Slow Cities are mainly in the UK | D．there are about 24 Slow Cities in the world |
| A．Satisfied. | B．Excited. | C．Happy. | D．Dissatisfied. |
| A．Slow down and you’ll move fast. | B．Time flies never to be recalled. |
| C．Eat slowly and you’ll be healthy. | D．Pay attention to the quality of life. |
3 . I was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, and it was a shock to my parents that I arrived without arms or legs. My parents did their very best to keep me in the mainstream school system and give me every opportunity to live to the fullest.
We later moved to Brisbane, Australia. At age eight, I could not see a bright future ahead and I became depressed. When I was ten years old, I decided to end my life by drowning myself in a bathtub. After a couple of attempts, I realized that I did not want to leave my loved ones with the burden and guilt (愧疚) that would result from my suicide. I could not do that to them.
I wasn’t depressed my entire childhood, but I did have ups and downs. At age thirteen I hurt my foot, which I use for many things like typing, writing and swimming. That injury made me realize that I need to be more thankful for my abilities and less focused on my disabilities.
A cleaner at my high school inspired me to start speaking about my faith and overcoming adversity when I was seventeen. Then, I found myself in front of three hundred sophomore (grade 10) students and I was very nervous. My knees were shaking. Within the first three minutes of my talk, half the girls were crying, and most of the boys were struggling to hold their emotions together. One girl in particular was sobbing very hard. We all looked at her and she put her hand up. She said, “I am so sorry to interrupt, but can I come up and hug you?”
She came and hugged me in front of everyone, and whispered in my ear, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. No one has ever told me that they loved me and that I am beautiful the way I am.” Her gratitude inspired me to go across 44 countries and speak 2,000 times. I realized that we all need love and hope.
I spoke on motivational topics after creating the company ‘Attitude is Altitude’ to spread my messages of faith and hope around the world.
Dream big, my friend and never give up. We all make mistakes, but none of us are mistakes. Take one day at a time. Embrace (拥抱) the positive attitudes, perspectives (思考方法), principles (原则) and truths I share, and you too will overcome.
1. Nick first became depressed when ____________.| A．he was ten years old | B．he decided to end his life |
| C．he thought his future wouldn’t be bright | D．he realized he had no arms and legs |
| A．his faith in God | B．an injury to his foot |
| C．the advice of his parents | D．a talk with his teacher |
| A．his parents | B．a girl | C．a cleaner | D．a boy |
| A．she felt sorry about Nick’s disability | B．she realized her mistakes after hearing Nick |
| C．she was sad that Nick could never pull through | D．Nick moved her with some encouraging words |
| A．With a positive attitude, any dream can be achieved. |
| B．Those who are disabled live happier lives than normal people. |
| C．By focusing on our disabilities, we can overcome them. |
| D．We should focus on what we can do, not what we can’t. |
4 . Right at this moment, cockroaches (蟑螂) are doing more to save the environment than you are. A big overstatement? Not if you’ve ever thrown away leftovers from your plate or bought more food than you could manage to cook in a week. You’re part of the food waste problem. But just like cockroaches, you can also be part of the solution.
For example, some farmers in Asia and Africa collect tomatoes in big bags, which means that many of them get crushed out of shape and spoiled before they can be sold or eaten. Switching the bags for large wooden containers already lowers the amount of food lost. Similar successes can and have been achieved in various regions with weather-protected storage facilities.
Let’s focus on China for a second. It’s one of the few countries with an innovative approach to minimizing the environmental impact of food waste. How does it do it? Cockroaches. Millions of the tiny creatures are kept in farms in the suburban districts of big cities. Every morning, food waste is delivered by the tonnes and fed to the cockroaches. Just like tiny pigs, they’re not picky and devour everything quickly. After they die, they’re processed into protein-rich feed for animals such as cows or sheep, or used for cosmetic products and Chinese medicine. It’s an efficient and environmentally-friendly alternative to dumping leftover food in a landfill. Cockroaches aren’t going to solve the problem with food waste, but they can serve as an inspiration for finding other similar solutions on a wider scale.
To avoid food waste completely, improvements are needed at every step of the food supply chain, from production to retail. These take time and are often out of your hands as a consumer. But a meaningful reduction of food waste is definitely in your hands. You can not only buy less and shop more often, but also cut down on animal products.
1. Which link in the food supply chain does paragraph 2 focus on?| A．Processing. |
| B．Packaging. |
| C．Transporting. |
| D．Trading. |
| A．Preserve. |
| B．Transform. |
| C．Grasp. |
| D．Swallow. |
| A．It is widely used around the world. |
| B．It solves the problem with food waste. |
| C．It lessens the environmental impact of pigs. |
| D．It inspires people to seek creative solutions. |
| A．Some solutions to food waste. |
| B．The current state of food waste. |
| C．Cockroaches’ help to save the environment. |
| D．Some factors contributing to food waste. |
5 . I was fortunate to spend every summer camping with my parents when I was a kid. By the age of 18, I’d visited every province in my home country of Canada. Even today I can still recall an impressive tour vividly.
It took us six people a long time to drive to Newfoundland from Ontario. When we arrived on the island, it poured rain every day. We just kept driving north, hoping to outrun it. We jumped on a ferry to Labrador Peninsula, crossing the Strait of Belle Isle, and moved our way up the coast of this northerly and thinly-populated region.
The scenery in Labrador is beautiful. We saw long white sand beaches along the Atlantic coast that looked inviting, but the water was cold year-round. While standing at the top of a lighthouse, my dad said, “This will be the new Caribbean once global warming hits.”
We soon discovered Battle Harbor, a historic fishing village that can only be reached by ferry. In the mid-1800s it had a population of 350 people and was considered the unofficial capital of Labrador. Now it was more like a deserted town, and I distinctly remember feeling the furthest from anything that I’ve ever felt. Multiple ferry rides and 600 miles separated me from the nearest major city of St. John’s.
If you’re curious about Newfoundland & Labrador (NL), I highly recommend a 2013 film called The Grand Seduction. It’s a delightful comedy about a small fishing village called Tickle Head that’s struggling to figure out its future.
Travelling made me get to know my country so well, which has had a tremendous influence on shaping the person I am now. I hold a solid mental picture of Canada, stretching from sea to sea, which I’ve taken with me to other parts of the world because I have great passion for it.
1. Which of the following was the author’s tour route?| A．Ontario — Newfoundland — Battle Harbor — Labrador Peninsula. |
| B．Ontario — the Strait of Belle Isle — Newfoundland — Labrador Peninsula. |
| C．Ontario — Newfoundland — the Strait of Belle Isle — Labrador Peninsula. |
| D．Labrador Peninsula — the Strait of Belle Isle — Newfoundland — Ontario. |
| A．It is naturally appealing. |
| B．It is remote and lonely. |
| C．It gives a sense of belonging. |
| D．It is unique and peaceful. |
| A．It is mostly set in NL. |
| B．It describes NL in detail. |
| C．It offers clues to NL’s situations. |
| D．It implies NL’s promising future. |
| A．He loves his country better. |
| B．He has a passion for the sea. |
| C．He is more open to new cultures. |
| D．He holds a solid picture of his future. |
6 . During this tour you will discover the foundations of the modern science of medicine in two French cities: Paris and Montpellier. Besides, you will enjoy the beauty of the architecture and gardens of these two cities.
DAY 1: Welcome to Paris. There’re no planned activities until the evening. In the evening, Linda Geddes will give you a talk about the tour ahead.
DAY 2: This morning you’ll meet our expert local guide for a walking tour on the Left Bank, starting at the Musée Curie, a museum devoted to the history of radiation therapy. After lunch you’ll visit the Musée d’Histoire de la Médecine, which houses a large collection of rare surgical instruments from the 18th century onwards.
DAY 3: This morning you’ll visit the Musée des Arts et Métiers in the Marais district. It now houses a museum devoted to science and technology. You’ll also see the Musée des Moulages in the Hôpital Saint-Louis, where you’ll see a specialist hospital built for dealing with skin disease.
DAY 4: Take a train to Montpellier. You’ll check into a hotel just off the grand Place de la Comedie and the afternoon will be free to explore the city including the wonderful Musée Fabre, one of the best museums of French art in the country.
DAY 5: This morning you’ll visit the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montpellier, one of the oldest continually-operating medical schools in the world. After that you’ll continue to the Jardin des Plantes, one of the oldest gardens in the world and originally designed to produce herbs for medicinal use.
DAY 6: Return to Paris by train.
1. What will tourists learn about through the tour?| A．Modern gardens. |
| B．Medical history. |
| C．Two cities’ history. |
| D．Medical schools in Paris. |
| A．Day 2. |
| B．Day 3. |
| C．Day 4. |
| D．Day 5. |
| A．In the Musée Curie. |
| B．In the Musée Fabre. |
| C．In the Musée des Moulages. |
| D．In the Musée des Arts et Métiers. |
7 . Bad judgments are meant to feed our own personal ego (自我意识) and put others down, which is not the healthiest thing to do. Here are five reasons why you should stop it now.
You start finding faults in everyone. Judging quickly moves on to more private areas of your life.
Judging becomes a habit. If you judge people, sooner or later, it becomes a habit, and you start judging everyone around you for the tiniest of things.
People begin to distrust you. If you pass judgments about other people in front of your audience, you will lose their trust. As they will begin to feel that if you can judge others in front of them, you can talk about them behind their back.
Judgment is a sign of unhappiness. If you are 100% happy with who you are, you are a lot less likely to feel the need to judge others. If you are self-assured, you will not feel the need to cast a downward glance at others.
| A．You are viewed positively by people. |
| B．You start taking yourself too seriously. |
| C．Hence, seeing others positively shows we are positive people. |
| D．You judge their clothing, actions, success, values, and everything. |
| E．Likewise, you also judge because you feel you are better than others. |
| F．You start judging your close ones; friends, family members, partner, etc. |
| G．And no one wants to make friends with someone often talking unkindly about others. |
8 . A vague image shows a nearly naked man in a vast field of rainforest, spear held up to the sky and pointed at the helicopter circling above him—a man defending his homeland and people from outside influence.
This very scene made front-page news some years ago in the UK. It instantly highlighted the loss of ancestral homelands some tribal communities face as a result of ever-expanding plantations. However, bad news has a way of hitting the headlines, so we’re of the opinion that all aboriginal communities are in decline-and that’s not true.
During my travels through India, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the early nineties, I spent some time living with the Kalash, a tribe that inhabits three valleys in the Hindu Kush mountain range. I became firm friends with Saifullah, the chief spokesperson, and we’re still in touch to this day.
Back then I remember talking to a very serious aid worker in the American Club in Peshawar who told me straightly that the Kalash, surrounded by conservative Islam, had no chance of survival and would be gone in 10 years. That was 25 years ago. When I caught up with Saifullah recently, asked what his response was to those who believe Kalash culture is dying.
“It’s not true,” he declared. “The Kalash culture and community is as strong today as it was when you first came. We still have our festivals. We still have a shaman and bow shakers. an Oazis who are holding the culture. the religion. Our younger people are becoming prouder of the culture they know they are different and they like it. Many are learning the old ways from the fathers,” he added.
Will Millard, a TV presenter who spent a year living with the Korawai of West Papua, agree “Perhaps tribal communities aren’t in decline, but just in transition (转型),” he told me.. “As human society, we are in a constant state of change. We accuse them of losing their culture because they’re wearing clothes, or using a gun instead of arrows, but a T-shirt doesn’t make them any of a Korawai man. Culture lives below the surface,” added Millard.
1. What is the purpose of paragraph 1?| A．To introduce the topic of the text. | B．To call on people to protect forests. |
| C．To show conflicts between humans. | D．To describe tribal communities’ condition. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Disapproving. | C．Uncaring. | D．Ambiguous. |
| A．The Kalash culture has been declining. |
| B．The younger generation have lost their traditions. |
| C．Original culture has made the Kalash richer |
| D．The younger generation have become more aware of their culture’s uniqueness. |
| A．Tribal culture is worth preserving. |
| B．Tribal communities have been damaged. |
| C．Tribal communities are not in decline but in transition. |
| D．Traditional communities’ lives are changing. |
9 . A smoke bomb from a party started a major blaze (火焰) near Los Angeles in September,just one of many recent wildfires ignited (引燃) by people. Now, an analysis of satellite data shows human-caused blazes spread much faster and kill more trees than ones ignited by lightning.
Fire has always been a part of California’s natural history. But several centuries of human settlement have created new conditions that promote its spread.Studies have shown human ignition is to blame for 84% of all wildfires in the United States,and 97% of all those that threaten homes.
Human-caused fires always seemed more extreme, says Stijn Hantson,a fire ecologist at the University of California,Irvine,who led the new research. But measurements of how fast they spread and their impacts on ecosystems (生态系统) in California had not been explored, he notes.
To examine those differences, Hantson and his colleagues analyzed satellite data for 214 wildfires in California between 2012 and 2018.Human-caused fires typically spread about 1.83 kilometers per day, more than twice as fast as lightning-ignited burns,the team reports.The faster spreading fires also burned more violently and killed “double or triple” the trees as lightning-caused ones.
However, there is no fundamental difference in the chemistry of a human-caused blaze. “A fire is a fire” Hantson says. “It’s the surrounding things that matter.” Causes of fires ranging from improperly thrown cigarettes to sparking (冒火花) power lines could ignite a blaze on any given day, he says, while lightning strikes and dry thunderstorms only happen seasonally.
The researchers tracked meteorological data and found that human-caused fires were more likely to start on days with extreme weather conditions,and were more associated with drier,less-forested landscapes. This adds to scientists’ understanding of how humans are extending the fire season, says Nathan Mietkiewicz, an ecologist with the National Ecological Observation Network.
1. The author uses some data in paragraph 2 to show that ________.| A．wildfires are mostly caused by humans |
| B．most wildfires threaten people’s homes |
| C．wildfire is a part of California’s natural history |
| D．wildfires break out frequently in the United States |
| A．To prove how extreme human-caused fires are. |
| B．To find out the causes and solutions of wildfires. |
| C．To explore the speed and effects of wildfires caused by humans. |
| D．To examine the differences between a human-caused blaze and a nature-caused one. |
| A．By giving examples. |
| B．By making comparisons. |
| C．By analyzing cause and effect. |
| D．By giving definitions. |
| A．Human-caused fires and lightning-caused fires are basically different. |
| B．Lightning strikes and thunderstorms can always lead to wildfires. |
| C．Wildfires only happen in dry,less-forested areas. |
| D．Humans are to blame for the extended fire season. |
10 . Sarah, a friend about my age, is tremendously successful on Wall Street and is highly respected. But she wasn’t very happy and hadn’t been happy for many years. She had few real friends. She worked incredibly long hours and felt physically exhausted a lot of the time. You would think the solution to her unhappiness was obvious. But when I offered it to her, her reply, after some consideration, was astonishing.
“Maybe I would prefer to be special rather than happy.”
She explained: “Anyone can do the things it takes to be happy-go on vacation, spend time with friends and family...but not everyone can accomplish great things.”
That’s when it struck me: people who choose being special over happy are addicts. She was addicted-to work and, underneath that, to success. Maybe that sounds strange to you. You can picture a person desperately hooked on booze, but probably don’t picture someone who is successful and persistent. However, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the likelihood of drinking rises with education level and socioeconomic status. But the worst addiction I have seen is work a holism. This term was coined by the psychologist Wayne Oates in 1971 for someone who has “the compulsion (强迫) or the uncontrollable need to work continuously.”
They are caught in a vicious cycle：they become successful by working more than others-and thus more than" “necessary”-but believe they have to keep up that pace to maintain their productivity. The rewards of that productivity give way to a fear of falling behind as the drive to keep running. Soon enough, the work crowds out relationships and outside activities. With little else, work is all that is left to the workaholic, reinforcing (强化) the cycle.
Maybe you can relate to this. I can. We need to get to the bottom of these problems-work a holism and success addiction-that lead us to our unavoidable professional destruction. But more importantly, we need to escape them so we can make the jump to new success.
1. What would possibly be the solution that the author offered?| A．Set up your own company! |
| B．Try to become more outgoing! |
| C．Seek help from professionals! |
| D．Work less and enjoy your life! |
| A．She was fed up with working with workaholics. |
| B．She wasted too much time on unnecessary work. |
| C．She drank more booze than it was healthy for her. |
| D．She couldn’t stop working and she didn’t want to. |
| A．Discovered. | B．Invented. | C．Supplied. | D．Recognised. |
| A．Professional success and reputation. |
| B．Endless working, fear and loneliness. |
| C．Intense relationships with colleagues. |
| D．Enormous enthusiarn to get on in life. |
